THE CHERRY ORCHARD. To 5 August.
London
THE CHERRY ORCHARD
by Anton Chekhov translated by David Lan
Southwark Playhouse 62 Southwark Bridge Road SE1 0AT To 5 August 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 5 Aug 3pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 08700 601761 (24hr no booking fee)
www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 July
A theatre on the move aptly stages Chekhov’s play about a family becoming dispossessed.
With neither listed buildings nor a Russian Heritage to step in, when the roubles run out for Chekhov’s characters property has to be sold. Not that the sense of cultural traditions being destroyed is very strong. Gaev might make a speech to a 100-year old bookcase but (even if it held more books than the one in Kate Wild’s accomplished production) it’s just one of his airy speeches, with little more meaning than his other talk mode, muttering about billiards.
So it’s fitting the finest moment for James Woolley’s fine, delicate Gaev is silence as he hands over the anchovies he’s brought back from the auction of the family house and its famous orchard. It shows him a picture of misery. The orchard no longer produces anything, but it’s wrapped-up in this family’s minds.
Even Gaev’s sister Ranevskaya, blessed with a charisma Virginia Denham sufficiently suggests (it deserts her, leaving her drained, when she hears the auction’s outcome), is self-destructive. She inspires affection but has thrown her own away on a money-leaching lover during years spent away from her precious orchard. He must have found taking her money easy; everyone else does.
Chekhov continually pulls feelings away from rational sense, as experience frequently does. Even serf turned property millionaire Lopakhin is in Ranevskaya’s personal force-field (she was kind to him when he was young) though he recognises financial salvation lies only in sacrificing the orchard to become holiday homes for what Gorky called ‘Summerfolk’.
This capitalist’s view of a future where everyone buys their slice of ownership has a confidence Clive Moore captures; his Lopakhin retains an accent suggesting unrefined origins but has the calm confidence of success. Except in personal affairs, being unable to admit his love for Varya. Debra Penny’s excellent Varya bristles on the surface, while showing the impatience for love she’s incapable of initiating either.
Alex McSweeney is luxury casting for the self-important servant Yasha, pocketing coins Ranevskaya’s dropped, drinking the champagne, making a conceited but plausibly successful self-seeker of the character. With good, or at least competent work, elsewhere, this revival’s well worth a look.
Firs: David Barnaby
Yepikhodov: Colin Campbell
Ranevskaya: Virginia Denham
Simeonov-Pischik: Geoffrey Drew
Charlotta: Diane Janssen
Dunyasha: Gemma Larke
Yasha: Alex McSweeney
Traveller/Post Office Clerk: Thomas Milton
Lopakhin: Clive Moore
Anya: Marianne Oldham
Varya: Debra Penny
Trofimov: James Thorne
Gaev: James Woolley
Director: Kate Wild
Designer: Naomi Dawson
Lighting: Julian McCready
Sound: Tshari King
Music: Olly Fox
Choreographer: Laura Kriefman
2006-07-27 11:25:33